问答题
Read the following passage and state what wrong is with the use of "hello" from the socio- cultural perspective. A group of Chinese girls who just arrived at the U.S. for their university education decided to visit the city of New York together. Since their school was not very far from the city, so they planned to take a Grevhound bus to go there at the weekend. Saturday morning, they got up early and after two hours' drive they got to the downtown of the city. They stayed therefor a couple of hours, shopping and sightseeing happily. Everything seemed OK until it was the time for them to go back—they suddenly realized that they lost their way back to the Greyhound bus station. What made the situation worse was that it was getting darker. In despair, they stopped at a corner on the street and decided to ask for help. At this moment they saw a young couple passing by so they said "Hello!" to this couple. To their surprise, the couple looked at them coldly and hustled on. Having no way out, they approached to the next group of passers-by and tried a louder "Hello" this time. Again they got nothing but a cold shoulder from these city people.
【正确答案】Language is a system of arbitrary symbols used for human communication. While culture is often defined as a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. Language is an indispensable carrier of culture. Culture finds a better representation through language use. In other words, there exists a close relationship between language and culture. According to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, language helps mould our way of thinking and, consequently, different languages may probably express speakers' unique ways of understanding the world. In the passage, in order to ask for help the group of Chinese girls says "Hello" to the young couple and then to the next group of passers-by, but they have failed to realize the cultural context in which the communication takes place. In the United States where English is used, people should begin with "Excuse me" rather than "Hello" when asking for help. "Hello" is often taken as a informal way of greeting rather than a way of asking for help and this may well underlie why "the couple looked at them coldly and hustled on" and "they got nothing but a cold shoulder from these city people". Due to their unawareness of the influence of culture on language, they fail to get help from the young couple and the next group of passers-by.